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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1413772
This article is part of the Research Topic World Health Day 2024: Frontiers in Public Health presents: "My Health, My Right" View all articles

Heterogeneity in public health service utilization and its relationship with social integration among elderly migrants in China: A latent class analysis

Provisionally accepted
Xiaolong Bu Xiaolong Bu Ting Wang Ting Wang Qian Dong Qian Dong Cuiping Liu Cuiping Liu *
  • Shandong First Medical University, Tai'an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: The elderly migrant population in China is on the rise, which presents challenges for the national public health service system. However, the heterogeneity of public health service utilization and its relationship with social integration among the elderly migrant population remains unclear. This study aims to explore the heterogeneity the public health service utilization and how it relates to their social integration. Methods: A total of 6,178 elderly migrants from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) in 2017 were included in this study. Exploratory factor analysis was used to categorize social integration into four dimensions. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify different sub-groups of public health service utilization. ANOVA and multivariate logistic regression were used to determine the characteristics of different sub-groups.Results: Three potential classes of public health service utilization were identified: low utilization of basic public health services class (N=3264,52.756%), medium utilization of basic public health services class(N=1743,28.172%), and high utilization of basic public health services class (N=1180,19.072%). Gender, education, extent of mobility, and move alone or not , flow time were all predictors of the class of public health service utilization. There were significant differences in social integration across potential categories(p＜0.0001) Conclusions: The utilization of public health services of the elderly migrants is affected by many aspects. Social integration deserves attention as a significant influencing factor in the utilization of public health services. The government should pay attention to the characteristics of the elderly migrants and formulate relevant policies in a targeted manner in order to improve the utilization of public health services of the elderly migrants.

    Keywords: ：Exploratory factor analysis, latent class analysis (LCA), Older migrant population, Social integration, Utilization of basic public health services

    Received: 07 Apr 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Bu, Wang, Dong and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Cuiping Liu, Shandong First Medical University, Tai'an, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.